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Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

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Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#651

Post by dboreham »

michaelpb wrote: post #577
Traster wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is still orders of magnitude longer than our distance to the Roman Empire. We've gone from no flight to space travel in 150 years and you're worried about 50 million years.

Right all these comments are just baffling me. This is premature optimization on steroids. For a random analogy, I really hope these people aren't in meetings arguing about how to design a DB schema to last for 50000000 years, when the meeting topic was how to fix slow queries on an unindexed field. The US life expectancy dropped one of the largest drops ever (1.5 years) and instead of facing the actual real-life dis…

I think I have been in that meeting.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#652

Post by johnrgrace »

Zelphyr wrote: post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

The thing is "we" won't get to mars with billionaires trying to go to there it will be their kids and the people they pick.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#653

Post by dboreham »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #337
arrosenberg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyists are paid for by private businesses, to win contracts which will be poorly performed by privately owned contractors. OTOH the US Government, with programs run by publicly paid employees: went to the moon, built a ton of dams, including the Hoover and Grand Coulee, electrified the Tennessee Valley, built the interstate highway system, etc.

Can you come up with any projects the US government has done successfully in the last 50 years though?

The internet?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#654

Post by gameman144 »

aylmao wrote: post #555
WalterBright wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled "cost of Apollo program" and it comes to $257 billion in today's dollars. Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it.

> Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it. Isn't that what adjusting to today's dollars essentially does? Those $28 billion were back then what $257 billion are in today's economy.

Not quite:

The purchasing power of a dollar has grown ~8.5x over the past 60 years.

The US GDP has grown about 38x in that same time.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#655

Post by WalterBright »

aylmao wrote: post #555
WalterBright wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled "cost of Apollo program" and it comes to $257 billion in today's dollars. Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it.

> Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it. Isn't that what adjusting to today's dollars essentially does? Those $28 billion were back then what $257 billion are in today's economy.

> Isn't that what adjusting to today's dollars essentially does?

To make it more obvious, a town council spending $1 million on a project is a much bigger undertaking (for them) than a country spending $1 million. It has nothing to do with inflation. I.e. consider it as percentage of GDP.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#656

Post by WalterBright »

dboreham wrote: post #647
aylmao wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, the economy was considerably smaller in those days, and so the Apollo program took up a much larger share of it. Isn't that what adjusting to today's dollars essentially does? Those $28 billion were back then what $257 billion are in today's economy.

No. I think parent means that the economy was smaller in real terms. E.g. the population was lower.

I read somewhere that 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#658

Post by WalterBright »

layoric wrote: post #627
dumbfoundded wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is creating a constellation of satellites that can provide global internet. His technology seems like the only viable way to and back from Mars. Bezos/Branson made a rollercoaster for the super wealthy.

>Musk is creating a constellation of satellites that can provide global internet And is a good example of creating negative externalities, lots of ground based astronomy (a field that has contributed immensely to our collective scientific knowledge and pushed technology advancements forward globally) extremely difficult due to those same satellites that create interference. Yes, global internet is good, but funnily e…

> Musk might have accelerated this through risking his personal wealth when creating SpaceX but this was not a one man effort and people should spend less time attributing these advancements to one person.

You could have erased any person in SpaceX and SpaceX would have happened anyway. Erase Musk, and no SpaceX. Musk was the lynchpin to making it happen. He provided the vision, the impetus, the funding, and the leadership.

That's why he gets (and deserves) the credit.

It's just like Apple. Apple floundered with CEO after CEO, winding up 90 days from bankruptcy. Then Jobs became CEO, and Apple became the richest company in the world.

With the same staff.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#659

Post by gameman144 »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #573
WalterBright wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments actually make the risky investments. Large investments are not the same as risky investments.

Democratic governments make the largest and riskiest investments. I've provided quite a few examples in the last century. Do you have any evidence or theory as to the contrary?

Democratic government could very well make the largest and riskiest investments, but I find it hard to believe that they make the most efficient investments.

Government need to get a job done, but they also need to appease voters and play politics to be able to achieve long-term goals. Businesses self-select for efficiency in the long-term, because those that aren't efficient go bankrupt or get overtaken by a more efficient upstart.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#660

Post by goatse-4-this »

bilbo0s wrote: post #246
zapnuk wrote: post #185

If billionaires entrust their money to more or less random people for philanthropic objectives I rather have them be taxed higher and let a (somewhat inefficient) government decide how to invest the money. At least I had a role in electing the government and can change my vote based on their performance.

Give it to the government instead? That's insane. Live a few years here in Wisconsin, and then talk to me about how we should give the thieves in the government more money. Foxconn much? Better to choose a few good people and give it to them. Best part about the Bezos method is that all of us can also make a boatload of money and give it to people we trust to distribute it. Under your proposition, all of us have to g…

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